Never tickle a sleeping Harry Potter
by ElMarquis
Summary: When Nathanial Potter was crowned the 'Boy-Who-Lived', who cares for his elder brother, Hadrian James Potter, after all, he is but one of the most intelligent wizards of the modern age. Or as modern as a backwards semi-Medieval society can get. Alas, he cares not for Britain, but makes his home 'cross the pond. NO SLASH! Straight as ****.
1. Chapter 1

_Celebrate! The rewrite is out!_

* * *

Alastair Patheroy sighed deeply as his Legilimency probe sought to bring to the surface memories emotionally repressed by his ward. On the outside, he seemed calm and serene, brown eyes twinkling, a slightly wrinkled face devoid of anger and a calming presence emanating from him.

"Where's my fucking revolver! They're going to fucking die in a mother-fucking hole!" screamed an irate seven-year-old, ignoring the serene looking man, whose face broke, momentarily, into an amused grin twitching the short German goatee adorning his chin. It was better to channel anger than to fear or to try and bury the memory again. Why boy had ended up in that orphanage, he didn't know.

The boy, tall, powerfully built for his age with a head of unruly raven-hair was destroying almost everything around him with accidental magic. Randomly, lightning bolts and fireballs burst from the glowing, eerie green aura which flared around the boy. They lanced out and shattered objects, singed and incinerated others, causing significant damage to all but the man sat comfortably behind a powerful shield.

It took fifteen minutes of anger, expressed through insults, threats and often gory and tortuous deaths for those responsible for his abandonment. It devolved into cursing in fluent Arabic and the ancient tongue of serpents, Parseltongue. All the time, his magic was flaring, lashing out until the kid finally screamed with pain and rage before falling unconscious from magical exhaustion. It turned out that memories were enough to startle a powerful child into accidental magic, and that accidental magic was significantly more powerful than the elder man had ever seen. The child would need to learn to control his magic and harness that power.

Overlooking the glowing lights of the Las Vegas Strip, with its infamous casinos, the luxurious penthouse was owned, mainly, by businessmen who either owned businesses in the area, or came to the area frequently enough to lose their money. In this case, the occupants were Alastair Patheroy, a wizard of some repute in his own field, and his ward, Harry Potter. Because who actually calls a kid 'Hadrian'?

However, a bit of background would explain why this event was occurring. Born July 31st 1988 and followed two years later by his younger brother Nathaniel Potter, Hadrian 'Harry' Potter. When Harry was three years and three months old, the family had been in hiding in a cottage under the powerful Fidelius enchantment, when they were betrayed. The serpentine visage of the self-proclaimed Dark Lord Voldemort was one that still gave Harry nightmares. He had walked into the cottage, immediately stunning and binding both of the elder Potters. Oh how the 'light' would lament when, destroyed by the deaths of their children, two of the most prominent supporters of the light would withdraw from the war.

Upon entering the nursery in which Nathan was smacking two wooden bricks together and Harry looking disgustedly at the second Narnia book for its lack of gore, bloodshed and general violence which apparently C.S Lewis had found gratuitous, Voldemort had immediately trained his wand on the elder. It was natural to go from eldest to youngest. He spoke the words, a bastardisation of Ancient Aramaic healing spell. Voldemort prepared to cast again at the younger, when he was blasted apart by his own spell rebounding on him.

The reason was a combination of factors. It would later turn out under Alastair Patheroy's care, that Harry was first wizard in centuries known to be capable of fully mastering weather magic and becoming a storm mage. Unnaturally intelligent for his age, Harry could feel the malevolence rolling of Voldemort, and knew he was the being his parents and their friends feared to speak of and lived in terror of.

Mustering some significant hatred for the snake-faced wizard, Harry felt out for the magic around him and blasted the killing curse back at him. His uncontrolled power had sucked in all around him and his brother, draining a shattered soul fragment, though the shade of Voldemort fled, screaming, flying through the destroyed back wall of the cottage. Voldemort's body was vaporised, leaving his wand and robes on the floor as a grey shade swooped into the night.

Unfortunately, his parents decided that because Nathan had a V-shaped cut on his hand from one of his wooden blocks which had exploded from a fragment of Harry's lightning-throwing aura meant that Nathan had vanquished the Dark Lord. Despite his honorary grandfather Albus' best efforts, James and Lily often seemed to forget his presence. Remus Lupin had to remain present to remind them of Harry's needs, as they seemed unnaturally obsessed with the well-being of Nathan. They moved to another safe house and stayed behind its enchantments for two months, leaving Sirius Black in Azkaban for that time before leaving to testify of his innocence.

Thus, the Occlumency training which was forcing Harry to relive his every memory had just brought up when James Potter left him at an orphanage, stating that he felt he could no longer trust himself to care his sons, the thought of hiring a nanny for the heir to one of the richest of the Ancient and Noble Houses never crossed his mind. It was a strange coincidence that, after the enchantments bound to the ring of the head of the Potter family rejected James as its wearer, that Harry picked it up and pocketed it.

Harry suspected it had happened mainly as he almost never overtly displayed accidental magic. Preferring to read and learn, rather than becoming emotional and thus triggering outbursts of magic, unlike his brother. While Alastair wasn't entirely convinced it was the cause, Harry had come to believe that he was abandoned because his progenitors believed him to be a squib, placing him at opposites with his oft-spoiled younger brother.

Though he only remembered snatches, it had affected Harry at a subconscious level. He had a significant wariness of adults in power over him, which had only grown with time in a number of orphanages. Thus he was moved from that orphanage to another for his _unsociable_ tendencies, namely swearing often, refusing to adhere to curfew, reading books way beyond any near-four-year-old until his adoption by Alistair Patheroy.

He was still much like that. He swore often and loud, with an impressive vocabulary. He also refused to adhere to many rules, particularly ones concerning his repeated attempts to build explosive devices, attempts to impose diets and curfews. He spent time reading books on maths, history, various languages and the sciences, often consuming a book that most university graduates would have to spend a week or two on in a couple of hours.

From memories Harry had shared with him, Alastair could confirm that his birth mother had a sharp, wicked temper, while his birth father, James was one to hold a grudge for a long time, simmering. Harry was unfailingly capable of exploding in moments, or keeping a grudge on a slow simmer. He was usually horribly cynical, prone to sarcasm and capable of ripping a man apart with his tongue at ten paces. And as a number of their neighbours would bear witness, he usually was plotting something which would end up with somebody in tears. Usually his social services case officer. Often when he was particularly cranky, Harry would lash out at people with lethal levels of sarcasm, with a healthy dose of contempt and snideness, or occasionally, when the occasion warranted it, a lightning bolt of magic.

As an expert in Harry, an interesting subject with unplumbed depths, Alastair should not have attempted to dump a bucket of ice-cold water on his charge. When Harry awoke with the first drop of ice-cold water touching his face, Al really should have been expecting the rest wandlessly banished straight at him, every drop electrified by the follow-up lightning bolt.

"Fuck off!" Harry swore at the grinning old man who had raised a shield powerful enough to atomize the water droplets. Had the lightning bolt been directed _at_ him, not through a medium, he would be medium barbecued. Needless to say, Alistair was still cautious around the young man who had once managed to submerge downtown Las Vegas in monsoon-level rain and thunder storms for two days running.

"Come on little Harry, you've been asleep too long." teased the elder man.

"No shit Sherlock." was the reply from the bed; "Magical exhaustion, how long was I out?"

"I gave you an hour and a half." replied Al.

Harry slid out of bed, patting the bedside tables for his glasses before remembering that he hadn't worn glasses for over a year, swore briefly and settled into a meditative trance, once more going over memories. It couldn't be that hard, he only had another three and a half years of memories to review. At most. Maybe a few months less.

After spending a year hopping from orphanage to orphanage, finally across the coast to America, Harry had caught the eye of the-then Head Auror of the Los Angeles Auror Division, a former member of the American magical army, the Corps of Magic. Thus, he found himself living in the care of Alistair Patheroy, or technically, living in the apartment next door, he was far too independent to live _with_ someone.

He'd skipped all previous schooling and gone straight to high school... for no more than a fortnight before he left in disgust and took up home education. Al arranged a series of tutors in magical subjects while allowing Harry to self-teach non-magical subjects, often through the medium of the burgeoning internet. It meant less headaches for Al as he didn't have to sit by the phone just waiting for the call that Harry had blown up the school science laboratories. For Harry, it meant he had more time to put towards shooting his new Ruger Single Six .22LR revolver and building a dune buggy in his sitting room.

They were two of his favourite hobbies, apart from building explosives, shooting things and fast-moving vehicles.


	2. Chapter 2

**Seven years later, December 2002, NCIS HQ, Washington Navy Yard, Washington D.C**

"Got me anything?" asked a quiet voice from right behind Harry.

"FUCKING HELL!" shouted Harry. A teenager, he had grown well into himself, losing any babyfat he had previously had, dressing in an elegant dark-blue suit commissioned from Hardy Aimes on Saville Row. The suit jacket was slung on a peg at the entrance to the laboratory and replaced with a loose white lab coat which didn't completely hide a lean physique. His unruly black hair stood over an aristocratic face which, moments before had been glued to the eyepiece of a jeweller's eye loupe. He was stood in a laboratory owned by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, an agency under the purview of the Department of the Navy.

"Hey Harry, you really shouldn't react like that, it's not good for your heart." said Abby, the other occupant of the laborotary as she bounced over, accepting a large polystyrene container of her favourite mix of artificial sugar and caffeine from the person who had crept up on Harry.

"If Gibbs didn't make a habit of sneaking up on people like that!" Harry growled. Leroy Jethro Gibbs, former US Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant, Force Recon Marine and now head of the NCIS Major Case Response Team sighed. It hadn't been in his brief upon employment that he had to deal with fourteen-year-old maniacs with an IQ that would make most quantum physicists green with envy and an addiction to messing around in the lab.

"So, anything?" he asked again.

"I'm working on it. I've had to remove several solders from the chip of this phone, fucking thing was busted up badly. I'm having to re-solder parts. Give me half-an-hour and I can probably retrieve any information." cursed said teenager irritably.

Having been emancipated aged twelve when his guardian had been pulled away for The War on Terror, Harry had worked exhaustively. Completing his ongoing master's degrees in aero engineering, human biology and medicine, he'd ploughed on, writing a doctorate by thesis of two-hundred thousand words on medieval European history. He was on the road to completing two more, one in the role of ancient tactics and strategy on the modern battlefield and another on ancient cultures, primarily northern Africa and the Middle East.

His expertise in the subject meant that he was oft consulted by companies working in the archaeology business, particularly in the magical sector. Knowing the value of his knowledge, he'd began to study American, International and British law so as to take maximum advantage, or rather not be at a disadvantage. The study would hopefully evolve into degrees in three sectors of the law.

"Once you've done that, take a break, a coffee and go shoot at some poor bit of paper on the range." Gibbs ordered, having worked out how to defuse his youngest employee when particularly irritated.

Harry nodded and went back to soldering. Apart from the occasional muttered curse, he worked in silence. Even Abby, the ever-energetic Goth kept her pounding music's volume down to a minimum while Harry worked, giving him the space to complete his job. The entire NCIS Major Case Response Team had been working under a black cloud for a week, all irritable, quick to snap and argue.

Their case was the reason. A US Marine Sergeant had been killed in an IED attack in Afghanistan a fortnight ago, and in that time his wife and young child had been killed in their home on-base at Quantico. Harry was effected the most, as, during brief periods in orphanages before his adoption by Al Patheroy, he had seen the results of abuse, and murder was just a step further.

"Done it. Abby!" Harry barked.

"Okey-dokey." she replied, coming over with two wires; "Let's power this up and see what we get."

* * *

A few people stared as the teenager swept past, an imposing figure wearing neatly pressed blue trousers, a matching blazer, a white silk shirt, a black tie and expensive red-leather brogues. His blazer's cut had been designed so that there was only a slight bulge over his right hip and left thigh, where he was wearing holsters. One contained a Coonan M1911 chambering the .357 Magnum round, and the other an FNP-45 .45 ACP semi-auto. Having, from a young age, practised both some of the eastern martial arts and many of the western tactical hand-to-hand combat styles meant that, often, the pistols weren't necessary.

"Gibbs, the phone was used to ring the home of Sergeant Johnson's family on the night of the murder." Harry announced as he entered the bullpen.

"Can you trace where it was bought from?" Gibbs demanded.

"Batch number should allow us to get the information of who it went to from the manufacturer. While it will almost-certainly have gone through several intermediary dealers, but we should be able to work through that." replied Harry.

"Get a-" began Gibbs.

"Warrant should be faxed through in the next few minutes." Harry cut him off.

"Take-"

"Yes, I was planning on taking Tony anyway." said Harry.

"And don't-"

"Come back until we've found out where the phone came from. Of course." Harry continued, retrieving his car keys from the drawer of his desk, along with a fresh magazine for his .45, having just emptied one on the range. He also picked up his phone, wallet and a Super Redhawk .454 Casull revolver. A revolver for taking down bears it may be, but when you needed one accurate shot to kill one person, it eliminated the need to blaze away with a semi-automatic handgun.

Tony, who had been sitting on the front of his desk, watching the exchange like a tennis match, suddenly had a hand grip his shoulder and was dragged towards the lift, just grabbing his gun, badge and the warrant which the fax machine had churned out.

"Come on Tony." Harry ordered.

Walking out of the building and across the Admiral Willard Park, a small area of greenery dotted with historical objects, one of the propellers of the first-class battleship USS South Dakota, a sixteen-inch coast defence gun and an old fourteen-inch railway gun, Tony could keep his mouth shut no longer, giving voice to a question which had been bugging him.

"You do know that getting the buyer of the batch from the manufacturer is easier done over the phone?"

"And Abby's doing exactly that. We're going to get some lunch while she narrows it down for us. As soon as she gets a likely candidate for the final vendor, she's going to phone me and we hit the place." Harry told him after a moment of giving him the Gibbs-patent 'shut up and take my word as gospel' look.

Silently climbing into the crimson Lister MK.3 XJS that Harry had come to work in, Tony raised no more objections as, in a roar of ripping calico noise from the twin-supercharged V12, they took off towards the western edge of the navy yard. That silence didn't last for more than thirty seconds.

"What, not dunkin' donuts?" Tony asked.

"Contrary to popular tradition, we may be in law enforcement, but at least I have some depths to which I will not stoop as regards food." Harry replied; "I know a good salad bar."

In fact he owned it. His grandfather, Charlus Potter, had left significant monies in offshore accounts, which Harry had managed to take control of. Amongst other things, it had paid for a six month visit to Britain, spent at Magdalen College in Oxford, it had also seen significant investment, and the purchase of a number of house elves.

The elves he owned were far better treated than they would be elsewhere. They couldn't be happier as Harry made sure they were well-fed, never punished and had lots of work to do, it was Elysium to them, and in exchange, were exceptionally productive in their work.

After he'd visited the centres of the magical world and was incredulous to see how backward it was. Seriously, crystal vials for potions? While working on his Oxford degree in history, Harry had set up his own Gringotts accounts and immediately started making inroads on the British economy. Protective goggles, masks with respiration charms and heavily enchanted lab coats were the first things his house-elf army began to produce and ship to Britain, followed by boiling and test tubes to hold completed potions as well as ingredients, all magically reinforced. Having an army of little Yoda-like creatures was useful.

It had also paid at the same time as his Oxford degree for six months of training in magical combat under the ex-Auror Alastor Moody, which, on top of Al Patheroy's training, allowed Harry to write his own five-year course on Defensive Magic from beginning of magical education to Auror level and mass-produce it. The Australian Royal Magical Rangers, the Canadian Auror Corps and Gringotts themselves purchased the first fifty-thousand copies of each of the five books. The American Mages followed, along with the Salem Institute of Magic, the San Francisco Magical Academy and most other American schools bought copies.

The fact that he worked his money, in the magical world, between his Gringotts Britain account and the Federal Gnome Bank of Washington had increased cooperation between the two banks, nations and species. And it filled his account quite nicely thank-you very much.

Easily weaving through Washington traffic, heading across the Anacostia River, Harry was startled when his phone rang. He hadn't been expecting Abby to deliver so quickly. Snapping it open and jamming it by his ear as he drove, Harry was greeted with the irrascible tones of his account manager.

"_You're still alive, irritating human!_" snarled the goblin with faux-anger.

"Ah, how good to hear from you my friend!" Harry said cheerfully as the technology-using goblin ground his teeth in London. It really hadn't been that hard to protect muggle electronics from magical interference and Gringotts weren't against anything that could bring them extra profit.

"_If I was your friend, I'd gouge my eyes out with a spoon._" Griphook replied snidely.

"Anyway, how are my investments?"

"_Exceptionally healthy, we're raking it in._" said Griphook, suddenly being very cheerful now that gold was on the books; "_The Director, Master Ragnok, has approved the slow release of melted galleons in bullion form as long as he gets ten percent and we keep our traps shut about the idea._"

"Approve it." Harry ordered, remembering how much he'd laughed when he found out that Gringotts galleon coins were made from pure gold, twenty-two carat; "What about the manors idea?"

"_When you came to me with the idea, I thought you insane. Lucius Malfoy bought the former Grenwald Manor for ten-thousand galleons at the end of the last war, I bought it on your behalf to twenty-five. Complete restoration, stripping of the wards and sale costs added five thousand to that. We sold it for fifteen-million pounds on the muggle market, that's three-million galleons, so we ripped off the slimy little bastards._" Griphook reported instantly.

"One-hundred times the amount we invested into the purchase, restoration and sale of the property." Harry chuckled smugly; "It's a good investment, keep going with that."

"_All the artefacts and books from the manor were transferred to your items vault for reviewing at your pleasure._" the goblin added; "_Your elven property-development company is under the jurisdiction of my assistant Gutstomper and has brought in thirty million pounds, six million galleons, to your account this month._"

"Expenditure?" asked Harry.

"_A total of one-hundred thousand galleons. Most of that was on purchasing property for redevelopment or land for development, I also followed your instructions and picked up a few antiques passing through our counterpart in the muggle world. Your car collection has added a Hispano-Suiza J12 Sport Torpedo and a Rolls-Royce Phantom II Continental. I myself have invested in an eight-litre Bentley for my personal transport in the muggle world._" Griphook replied; "_After all it wouldn't do to be seen travelling in anything less than style. Other vehicles were obtained in damaged states, repaired and sold with minimal expenditure at multiples of the original price._"

Harry chuckled and abruptly hung up, for no reason other than to annoy the goblin. Tony winced as Harry slipped around a big rig lorry in a blare of horns. Having been taught to drive by a Finnish rally racer... it was an understatement to say he was fairly good, and exceptionally filled with _sisu_.

"Who was that?" Tony asked; "Sounded like he hated you."

"My account manager. I make money, he makes money, so we don't screw each-other over." Harry chuckled, fishing out a cigar, he hesitated a moment and then put it back in his pocket. Extremely expensive fragrant Havana Cigars and good _Scottish_ Scotch Whisky were his two greatest vices, guilty pleasures. However, he had sworn off them until the murderer was was chasing was six feet under with holes shot through him.

"Here we go." Harry stated, swinging off the main road and pulling into a car park near the entrance of Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling.

Walking into the diner with Tony, Harry dropped himself unceremoniously into a seat at a booth near the counter, immediately being served by the waitress. Unfailingly nice, she had accepted Harry's usual sarcasm after he both out-cooked her and purchased the business.

"Usual coffee, far too much sugar and cream spiked with rum?" she asked.

"No, I want it spiked with arsenic thank-you." he replied with a 'no shit Sherlock' look; "Along with a toasted bacon sandwich and white pudding. Tony?"

"A coffee and a tuna salad sandwich." Tony replied.

After an hour of slowly rereading the case file and eating, Harry's phone rang again.

"_Got it. I've tracked it right down through to a package of phones purchased by Simpson's Loans for their employees._" Abby announced.

"Loans?" Harry asked.

"_And not in a nice way, they have a bit of an Al Capone reputation._" said Abby; "_Gibbs has got a warrant for all their loan files and is going to meet you there. The address is..._"


	3. Chapter 3

"Let's move." Harry barked at Tony, who finished the waffle he'd been having in two bits, following Harry as he strode out of the diner to the car.

"Sterling's way over, just north-west of Dulles." Tony announced; "Take the Interstate Four-Nine-Five up to-"

"I know where I'm going." Harry snapped as he strapped into the driver's seat; "And I'm not risking the Dulles traffic, we'll take the Four-Nine-Five to Langley and head across-country and come down to Sterling from the north."

The Lister erupted with a bellow as Harry started it, slamming the gear stick into reverse and mashed his foot into the carpet. The car spun up its wheels in reverse before he swivelled it around in a J-turn before moving into first gear.

The NCIS Dodge Charger screeched to a halt at the kerb, just missing the oncoming Lister. Harry pulled in next to Gibbs and climbed out, followed by a slightly seasick Tony.

"All staff are regarded as suspects." Gibbs said brusquely as they approached the loanshark's office. "Keep an eye out for anything that could connect them."

Harry unbuttoned his blazer, pushing back the right-hand side of it to expose the gleaming NCIS badge and the holster containing his loaded revolver. They stepped up to the door of the office and Tony entered first, swiftly stepping to the left. Harry followed, stepping to the right as Gibbs stormed in.

"Mister Simpson, I have a Federal Search Warrant for your loan files and you will also divulge to me which members of your staff had access to the batch of phones you bought from Tech and Tone store in Harrisonberg." Gibbs barked, presenting the man behind the counter with the warrant.

"I'm not Mister Simpson, I'm Rick Johnson, loan... representative." replied the man behind the desk, whose head was flicking back and forth, as if looking for an escape route.

"He's the dead marine's brother." muttered Tony to Harry.

"Then get Mister Simpson here, now." Gibbs ordered, and the man fled into the back of the office.

"Gibbs, Tony reckons that's Sergeant Johnson's brother." Harry told Gibbs.

"Get around the back and make sure he doesn't do a runner." Gibbs ordered; "I'm bringing him in anyway."

Harry slipped out walking down the side and around the back of the office, pulling back the hammer on his .454 revolver. The door in the back of the building opened at the same moment as a small girl of no more than six years old wandered into the alley from the other end. Rick Johnson's eyes snapped to Harry and then the child.

"Stay back!" he yelled, holding a handgun to the girl's head.

"Let her go Johnson, you won't shoot her." Harry said, fingering the record button on a small device by his left hand in his pocket.

"I will. Stay there and don't move." ordered Johnson as he began backing away.

"You wouldn't shoot a child." Harry repeated, hand not moving from the butt of the revolver.

"Oh yeah, then what happened to my bastard brother's spawn?!" demanded Johnson; "But then, you Feds already knew that."

Harry was caught between disgust at the man, but also he was pleased, giving him reason to shoot him.

"There's nowhere for you to go Johnson. Drop the gun and face justice or my colleagues behind you will employ lethal force." Harry told him.

Johnson twisted around and turned his gun to face where Harry had told him that the NCIS agents were. There was nobody there, but it was too late. An exceptionally good gunslinger can draw and shoot in a fifth of a second. Harry was prepared, arm tensed and finger ready to fall on the trigger, and he took a third of a second. At twenty feet away, the .454 Casull would hit its target in about nought-point-nought-one of a second.

The most highly-trained athlete could react to stimulus in one tenth of a second. An office-occupying murderer didn't have time to react before Harry fired. Tensing his finger on the trigger, the gun recoiled back and up, the shockwave going through his arm. But even as he released the trigger, Harry's finger was tensing again, the cylinder rotated and the revolver fired again. The first bullet punched through his heart between the ribs, while the second flattened itself on the wall after going through Johnson's head, and he collapsed to the ground, pistol still in-hand. Harry ran forward and helped the girl to her feet.

"Hey little one, you're safe." he whispered soothingly, keeping the girl's face away from the body, who was rather gruesomely missing the back of his head.

"I was so scared." whispered the little girl.

"I'm Harry, I work with the police, that bad man's never going to hurt you again." Harry said quietly as he waited for his fellow NCIS agents to catch up, holstering the revolver. On one knee with his arm wrapped around the shivering and trembling girl, he kept his eyes up and one hand resting near the grip of his gun until Tony and Gibbs burst around the corner, guns drawn.

"A bit late." grumbled Harry; "Johnson pulled a pistol, and took the girl hostage. You can see the result."

"Good." Gibbs grunted, holstering his pistol.

"Aww, Harry's going soft." Tony couldn't resist the urge to comment upon seeing the usually cold, occasionally explosively irritable and angry young man looking so sweet with the young girl with her head buried in his shoulder.

"I still have three rounds unexpended." Harry warned, although a close look revealed the fact his lips nearly twitched into a smirk, the closest that had recently been observed as a smile on his face.

He helped the little girl, Maria according to his surface Legilimency scan, into the back of the NCIS Dodge Charger as a couple of police cars arrived at the reports of gunfire.

* * *

About an hour later, Harry was sat behind his desk as Gibbs stormed in

"Local LEOs are giving us hell. Apparently we should have called them in instead of employing lethal force." grumbled Gibbs.

"Tell 'em to fuck off." Harry told him; "He was holding a semi-automatic handgun on a hostage and as the recording I got told us, he was responsible for two murders. Between the murdering bastard living and escaping, with the possibility of the kid getting hurt, I took the only course of action I thought reasonable, given that, despite a passing familiarity with SCARS, MCMAP, Krav Maga and several eastern martial arts, I wasn't confident of incapacitating or disarming him without the girl coming to harm."

"Agreed." Gibbs nodded.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I need to finish writing the dissertation for my newest degree, then I have paperwork for my investments to complete and a property development company to oversee, I need some sleep, a Havana Cigar, a week's worth of un-drunk whisky and a meal." Harry said irritably; "And between you and me, rapists and child-abusers were amongst those who get no quarter from me. I only gave him the option because I was recording myself."

"Apparently the girl, Maria, had wandered off from a 'bring your child to work' day and her parents left to contact her grandparents, so I'm going to keep her with me until they get back." Gibbs commented; "Though I think she might be a bit more at ease if you're around. Dinner?"

"Sure why not." Harry replied. To him, young children were some of the few who didn't judge him, be it judging his intelligence, or his lack of age, or any one of a thousand things.

After setting Maria up in one of the spare bedrooms of Gibbs' house and layering wards over it, Harry departed quietly and headed to his own home, spending a few hours on a translation of a Carthaginian scroll from around the time of Hannibal's campaign against the Roman Empire, and spent the rest of the evening working on his dissertation on crusader warfare and Saracen warfare during the twelfth century. On the far side of a night's sleep and a hearty full English breakfast, he drove to the Navy Yard, only to be greeted at the gates by a crowd of journalists, the chatter of cameras and the accompanying flashes.

"Sorry kid, someone leaked your part in last night." said Tony, poking his head into the car, "It has been blown a bit out of proportion and you're the 'Hero of America's children'. CNN and a good few others have heard about it and that you were photographed leaving NCIS HQ yesterday with the little Maria clutching your hand just makes you look more of a hero."

"There is nothing heroic about what I did Tony, remember that. It was simply a matter of what was right." Harry advised softly, remembering when he was eleven and some dark wizards tried to take out old man Patheroy. While none of the dark wizards survived, Harry suffered for months with the nightmares of killing them.

Between the nineteen attackers, the old man easily killed off twelve, but seven had cornered his adoptive son. Harry had gone berserk and left them dead, rather gruesomely so. Simple spells utilised with great powers, summoning charms ripping apart their internal organs, rope-binding spells crushing their rib-cages, levitating spells shooting them into the ceilings, it still occasionally haunted his dreams.

Far more perceptive than many gave him credit for, Tony glanced at Harry, suddenly realising Harry, in just a few moments had aged, not so much physically, but emotionally. His eyes looked tired and there were a few lines in his face which hadn't been prominently noticeable before. Then Harry closed off any emotion and blanked his face. He smiled slightly when, as he pulled up outside Admiral Willard park, Maria approached, tugging on the hands of two adults he assumed were her parents.

"Can't thank you enough Mr. Potter." began the father; "We were working, she went to the loo and simply vanished even though we were on the same floor of the same building."

"Don't worry." Harry replied with a slight nod; "I did my job, and Maria's a good girl, couldn't let anything happen to her. Just look after her and be careful, there are some scum out there who don't care who they do what to, and a bored child will often wander off."

After that, he confronted the press vultures, telling them that he had 'simply been doing his job' before departing to the far side of the NCIS security. New cases were always coming in and he was intuitive with these kinds of things. That was why he was usually in charge of the extensive cold cases file, in two months, he'd solved five cold cases which had been classed as 'never going to be solved'.

Behind him, Abby and Tony, the usually laboratory-bound forensic scientist and the field investigator watched Harry's swiftly-retreating back.

"Did you know he can show emotion other than extreme anger or complete apathy?" asked Tony.

"Does the latter count as emotion?" asked Abby; "But he would probably be nicer if people gave him hugs."

"I honestly think that he'd rather shoot himself than be hugged. Or maybe shoot the hugger."

* * *

Leaving work at NCIS satisfied, Harry settled into the Lister, taking a few moments to settle his mind before starting up the car, which barked into life attracting more than a few looks from other people heading home. He had work to do. Peeling out of the car park and heading north to the edge of the Navy Yard and then west to one of the checkpoint exits, Harry waved his ID to the guards before flooring it. Racing onto M Street South-West until, near the Washington Channel, he headed north, pulling up outside a glass and concrete monolith on E Street South-West.

Climbing out, Harry straightened his tie and picked up a briefcase from the boot before locking the car. Walking in, his pistol carefully hidden under his jacket and the badge in a pocket, he waved a different ID over a scanner which admitted him. Crossing the lobby, he stepped into a lift and pressed a button for the seventh floor. Deposited on a nondescript office floor, Harry made his way to a door marked 'Dr. Daniel Mulville – Deputy Administrator'. Rapping smartly on the door, he was bade to enter.

"Sir." Harry greeted the besuited man on the far side of the desk, who stood and shook his hand.

"Harry, how's law enforcement doing?" he asked genially.

"It sharpens the mind I'll admit." Harry shrugged; "And occasionally I think I might be helping the world."

"Indeed. Down to business, the schedule for the TDRS-J launch has been narrowed down to somewhere between the fourth and fifth of this month." Doctor Mulville stated; "We need the tracking aircraft in place."

"I'll do what I can, but that only gives me three days." commented Harry disapprovingly.

"I know. Weather, and the worries over whether this last rocket is still serviceable has prevented a confirmation of launch until this morning." apologised Mulville.

"However, I'll do what I can. We'll get the Foxbat and the NF-104 down to Cape Carneval as soon as possible." Harry sighed; "I will need to work out the flight profiles with my number two, practice the profiles. Then we need to get the measuring equipment, sensors and cameras on, test fly them and then do calibration runs."

"How long?"

"Every minute of the two days I'll have between arrival and launch."


End file.
